THE CHAPTER ART FROM “BEELZEBUB TALES”

A THIS PLACE in his tales, Beelzebub became silent. Then turning suddenly to his old servant Ahoon, who was sitting there listening as attentively as his grandson Hassein, Beelzebub said:

 

“What’s this, old man! Are you really listening to me with as much interest as our Hassein? Weren’t you there yourself, and didn’t you go with me everywhere on that planet Earth, and didn’t you see with your own eyes and sense for yourself everything I am telling him about?

 

“Instead of just sitting there open-mouthed at my tales, why don’t you also tell our favorite something? There is no getting out of it. Since those strange three-brained beings interest him so greatly, we have to tell him all we can about them.

 

“Surely something or other about those freaks must have struck you . . well, whatever it was, tell us about that.”

 

On hearing these words, Ahoon thought a little and replied.

 

“After your subtly psychological tales about all these muddle-heads, what can I add with my stories?”

 

But then, with unaccustomed seriousness and borrowing the style and even entire expressions of Beelzebub himself, he went on:

 

“Well now . . How shall I put it? My essence was often thrown off balance by those strange three-brained beings, and their foolish capers nearly always evoked the being-impulse of amazement in one or another of my spiritualized parts.”

 

And then addressing Hassein, he said:

 

“All right, dear Hassein!”I shall not, like His Right Reverence, tell you in detail about any particular oddity of the psyche of those three-brained beings of our Great Universe who have taken your fancy No, I shall only remind His Right Reverence of a certain factor whose origin goes back to the time of our fifth stay on the surface of that planet, and which, when we returned there for the sixth and last time, had become the chief reason why, in every one of your favorites, from the first day of their arising until their formation as responsible beings, their capacity for normal ‘being-mentation’ is distorted step by step, and is finally transformed almost into a ‘kaltoosaroo.’ “

 

Thereupon, turning to Beelzebub, with a timid look and in a hesitant tone he continued:

 

“Don’t blame me, Your Right Reverence, if I venture to express to you an opinion that has just arisen in me and that is the outcome of data perhaps already worn too thin for being-conclusions.

 

“In telling our dear Hassein the various reasons why the psyche of the contemporary three-brained beings of the planet Earth has been transformed, as you once deigned to express it, into a ‘mill for grinding out nonsense,’ you scarcely even mentioned one factor which, perhaps more than any other, has contributed to this during recent centuries.

 

“You yourself were present, as I well remember, at the arising of that factor during our stay in Babylon—I mean that factor which has since become definitely maleficent for the contemporary beings there and which they themselves call ‘art. ‘

 

“If, in your wisdom, you should consent to take up that question in detail, then, it seems to me, our dear Hassein would have the ideal material for elucidating all the peculiar abnormalities of the psyche of the three-brained beings arising in most recent times on that planet Earth which interests him.

 

Having said this, and wiping the drops of sweat from his forehead with the tip of his tail, Ahoon became silent and resumed his usual expectant posture.

 

Turning to him with an affectionate glance, Beelzebub said:

 

“Thank you, old man, for reminding me of this. It is true that I have scarcely mentioned that harmful factor they themselves created, which led to the final atrophy of those data for their being-mentation that had by chance still survived in them.

 

“All the same, old friend, although it is true that I have scarcely referred to it so far, this does not mean that I have not considered it We have ample time before us on our journey and, in all probability, in the course of my later tales to our common favorite Hassein, I would have remembered in due time what you have just reminded me about.

 

“However, perhaps it is opportune to speak just now about this contemporary terrestrial ‘art’ because, as you have said, during our fifth stay there, I actually witnessed the events that gave rise to the causes of this contemporary evil, and that occurred thanks again to those learned beings who were gathered in the city of Babylon from almost the whole surface of that ill-fated planet. “

 

Beelzebub then turned to Hassein and spoke as follows:

 

“This definite concept, now existing there under the name of ‘art,’ is one of those automatically acting data, the totality of which gradually and almost imperceptibly, yet very surely, converts these unhappy favorites of yours— beings who have in their presence all the possibilities for becoming particles of a part of divinity—merely into what is called ‘live meat.’

 

“In order to throw light on all aspects of the question of this famous contemporary terrestrial ‘art,’ and for your clear understanding of how it all came about, you must first know about two facts relating to what occurred in the city of Babylon during our fifth visit in person to the surface of that planet of yours.

 

“The first fact explains how and why I came to be a witness of those events which served as the basis for the existence among contemporary three-brained beings of the planet Earth of that now definitely maleficent notion called ‘art’, and the second is related to the earlier circumstances which, in their turn, were the origin of these events.

 

“Concerning the first of these facts, I must tell you that after the events which occurred among those learned terrestrial three-brained beings who had come to Babylon from almost the whole planet—that is to say, after they had split into several independent groups and had become absorbed, as I have already told you, in the question of ‘polities’—I resolved to leave Babylon and continue my observations among the beings of the powerful community called ‘Hellas ‘ I therefore decided to learn their ‘language’ without delay, and from then on I began to visit those places in the city of Babylon frequented by those beings who would be most useful to me in this study.

 

“One day, as I was walking along a certain street not far from our house I noticed on a large building I had often passed what is called on the Earth a ‘signboard,’ which had just been put up, announcing that in that building a new club for foreign learned beings had just been opened, called the ‘Adherents of

 

Legomonism ‘ On the door was a notice to the effect that the enrollment of members of the club was still going on, and that all reports and scientific discussions would be conducted only in the local and Hellenic languages.

 

“This interested me very much, and at once I thought of the possibility of making use of this newly opened club for practice in the Hellenic language.

 

“I then asked certain beings who were going in and out of the building for particulars concerning the club, and when, thanks to the explanation of one of these learned beings with whom, as it turned out, I was already acquainted, I had made it all more or less clear to myself, I then and there decided to become a member.

 

“Without thinking long about it, I entered the building and, passing myself off as a foreign learned being, I asked to be enrolled as an Adherent of Legomonism I managed to do this very easily, owing to that acquaintance whom I had met by chance and who, like the others, took me for a learned being like himself.

 

“Well, my boy, having thus become, as they say, a ‘full member’ of this club, I began to go there regularly, chiefly to talk with those learned members who were familiar with the Hellenic language I needed to practice.

 

“Now as regards the second fact I mentioned, this was due to the following events:

 

“You must remember that among the learned beings who were then gathered in Babylon from almost the whole planet, some had been brought there by coercion by the aforementioned Persian king, and others had come of their own accord, drawn by that famous question of the ‘soul And among the beings brought there by coercion were some who were not, like the majority, ‘learned beings of new formation,’ but who, with a sincerity proceeding from their separate spiritualized parts, strove for high knowledge with the sole aim of self-perfection.

 

“Owing to their genuine and sincere strivings, to the corresponding manner of their existence, and to their being-acts, this small number of beings, even before their arrival in Babylon, had been considered ‘initiates of the first degree’ by those terrestrial three-brained beings worthy to become ‘all-rights-possessing initiates according to the renewed rules of the Most Saintly Ashiata Shiemash.’

 

“And thus, my boy, when I began frequenting this club, it became evident to me, both from conversations with its members and from other data, that these few terrestrial learned beings, who were sincerely striving to perfect their Reason, had from the beginning kept to themselves in the city of Babylon, and never mixed in any of the affairs in which the general mass of Babylonian scholars very soon became involved.

 

“These few learned beings kept themselves apart, not only in the beginning when all the others established a meeting place in the very heart of Babylon, where for their better mutual support, both material and moral, they founded a central club for all the learned beings of the Earth, but also later on, when the whole body of learned beings split into three separate sections, each having its independent club in a different part of the city, these initiated beings identified themselves with none of the three sections.

 

“They existed in the suburbs and scarcely ever met any of the main body of learned beings, and it was only a few days before I was admitted as a member that they united for the first time for the purpose of organizing the club of the ‘Adherents of Legomonism. ‘

 

“These few learned beings I am speaking of had all without exception been brought to the city of Babylon by coercion and were for the most part among those taken by the Persian king from Egypt.

 

“As I learned later, this union of theirs had been brought about by two learned beings who were ‘initiates of the first degree.’

 

“One of these two terrestrial initiates, who had his arising among a race of beings called the ‘Moors,’ was named Kami el-Norkel. The other learned initiate was named Pythagoras, who had his arising among the Hellenes—those who were afterward called ‘Greeks.’

 

“These two learned beings, as it later became clear to me, happened to meet in the city of Babylon and, during what is called an ‘ooissapagaoomnian exchange of opinions,’ that is, during one of their conversations, the question arose, ‘Which forms of being-existence can serve the welfare of beings of the

 

future?’ They came to the conclusion that in the course of changing generations of beings on the Earth a very lamentable phenomenon occurs, namely, that for some reason or other during the processes of reciprocal destruction called ‘wars’ and ‘popular uprisings,’ numbers of initiated beings of all degrees are invariably destroyed and, together with them, there are also destroyed forever many legomonisms—the sole means by which information about former real events on the Earth is transmitted and continues to be transmitted from generation to generation.

 

“When these two sincere and honest terrestrial beings ascertained what they considered so ‘lamentable a phenomenon,’ they deliberated a long time and decided to take advantage of the exceptional gathering of so many learned beings in the same city to confer together for the purpose of finding some means of averting at least this distressing phenomenon, which proceeded on the Earth owing to the abnormal conditions of the life of man.

 

“And it was for this very purpose that they organized that club and called it the ‘Club of the Adherents of Legomonism.’

 

“So many like-thinking beings at once responded to their appeal that two days after my admission, the enrollment of new members was closed.

 

“And on the day when new members were no longer admitted, the number enrolled was 139, and the club continued with this same number of members until the Persian king abandoned his craze concerning those terrestrial learned beings.

 

“As I learned on joining the club, all the members present on the opening day had organized a ‘general meeting,’ at which it had been unanimously decided to hold a daily general meeting for reports and discussions dealing exclusively with the two following questions first, ‘What measures should be taken by the members of the club on their return home in order to collect all the legomonisms existing in their native lands and to place them at the disposal of the learned members of the club?’ and second, ‘What is to be done in order that the legomonisms might be transmitted to remote generations by some other means than through initiates alone?’

 

“Before my enrollment as a member, there had already been a great variety of reports and discussions concerning those two questions at their general meetings, and on the day of my admission a great deal was said on the question of how to attract, for the fundamental task of the club, the participation of initiated beings from among the followers of various ‘paths,’ who were then known as ‘onandjiki,’ ‘shamanists,’ ‘Buddhists,’ and so on.

 

“Well then, it was on the third day after I became a member of this club that there was uttered for the first time that word which has chanced to reach contemporary beings there and which has become one of the potent factors in the final atrophy of all the data still surviving in them for more or less normal logical being-mentation, namely, the word ‘art,’ which then had quite another meaning and referred to an entirely different idea.

 

“On that day when the word ‘art’ was uttered for the first time and its underlying idea and exact meaning were established, there was listed among the speakers a Chaldean learned being, very well known in those times, named Aksharpantziar.

 

“As the report of that already very aged Chaldean sage, the great Aksharpantziar, was the origin of all the subsequent events relating to that famous contemporary art, I will try to recall his speech and repeat it to you as nearly as possible word for word.

 

“He spoke as follows:” ‘Past centuries, and especially the two last ones, have shown us that during those inevitable psychoses of the masses leading to wars between states and popular revolts within states, it invariably happens that many of the innocent victims of the collective bestiality are those very beings who, owing to their piety and conscious sacrifices, are worthy to become initiates, and through whom various legomonisms containing information about real events that have taken place in the past could be transmitted to the conscious beings of succeeding generations.

 

” ‘Just such pious men as these always become the innocent victims of the popular bestiality because, in my opinion, being already free within, they never wholly identify themselves, as all the others do, with ordinary interests, and cannot share in the attractions, enthusiasms, and sentiments, or any other manifestation of those around them, however sincere.

 

‘Because these pious men exist normally, and in their relations with those around them are always well-wishing in both their inner and outer manifestations, in ordinary times they acquire the respect and esteem of

 

everyone But when the mass of people fall into this psychosis and split into their usual two opposing camps, their Reason becomes bestialized by the fighting, and they begin to entertain morbid suspicions of just these men who in normal times have always been unassuming and serious.

 

‘And if the attention of those afflicted with this psychosis happens to rest a little longer than usual on these exceptional men, they then have no doubt whatever that these serious and outwardly quiet beings have been, even in normal times, neither more nor less than “spies” for their present enemies.

 

‘With their diseased Reason these brutalized men categorically conclude that the seriousness and quietness of these beings were simply “secrecy” and “duplicity. “

 

” ‘And no matter to which hostile party they belong, the result of their psychopathic conclusions is that, without any remorse of conscience whatsoever, they put these serious and quiet men to death.

 

” ‘This, it seems to me, is the most frequent reason why, in the course of their transmission from generation to generation, the legomonisms about events that really took place on this planet are totally disappearing from the face of the Earth.

 

‘And so, my highly esteemed colleagues, if you wish to know my personal opinion, let me tell you sincerely with all my being that, in spite of everything I have said as regards the transmission of true knowledge to distant generations through corresponding initiates by means of legomonisms, there is nothing whatever that can be changed.

 

” ‘Let this form of transmission continue as before, as it has been established on the Earth since the dawn of centuries, and as this form of transmission by initiates through their “ableness to be” was renewed by the great prophet Ashiata Shiemash.

 

‘But if we men of today now wish to render some benefit to men of future times, all we must do is add to this existing means of transmission some new means or other, ensuing from the practices of our contemporary life on the Earth as well as from the experience of former generations over many centuries, in accordance with information that has come down to us.

 

‘I personally suggest that this transmission to future generations be carried out through the human “afalkalnas,” as they are called, that is, through various works of man’s hands which have entered into the everyday life of people, and also through the human “soldjinokhas,” that is, through various procedures and ceremonies, which have been established for centuries in the social and family life of people and which pass automatically from generation to generation.

 

‘Certain of these human “afalkalnas,” particularly those made of lasting materials, may remain intact and be handed down to our remote posterity, or copies may pass from generation to generation, thanks to the property rooted in man’s essence of giving out as his own, after having changed some minor detail, works that have reached him from long-past epochs.

 

‘In regard to the human “soldjinokhas,” such as various “mysteries,” “religious ceremonies,” “family and social customs,” “religious and popular dances,” and so on, although their external forms often change with the flow of time, the impulses they engender in man, and the manifestations that ensue from them, always remain the same.

 

‘Therefore, if we insert the useful information and true knowledge we have already attained within the inner factors that engender these impulses and manifestations, as well as in the works that I have mentioned, we can fully count on this knowledge reaching our very remote descendants, some of whom will decipher it and thereby enable all the others to utilize it for their good.

 

‘The question now is only this by what means can we bring about such a transmission through the various human “afalkalnas” and “soldjinokhas”?

 

‘For my part, I propose that this be done through the universal law called the “Law of Sevenfoldness.”

 

‘The “Law of Sevenfoldness” exists on the Earth and will exist forever and in everything.

 

” ‘For instance, in accordance with this law, the white ray is composed of seven independent colors, in every definite sound there are seven different independent tones, in every state of man there are seven different independent sensations, furthermore, every definite form can be made up of only seven different dimensions, every mass remains at rest on the Earth only as a result of seven “reciprocal thrusts”, and so on.

 

‘Well then, we wish that knowledge existing today— both what we have personally attained and what has reached us from times past, just that knowledge which all agree will be useful for our remote descendants—be indicated in some way or other in these human “afalkalnas” and “soldjinokhas,” so that in the future it may be perceived by the pure Reason of man by means of this great universal law.

 

‘The Law of Sevenfoldness, I repeat, will exist on the Earth as long as the Universe exists, and it will be seen and understood by men in all times as long as human thought exists, and therefore it can boldly be said that the knowledge indicated in this manner in the works of man will also exist forever on the Earth.

 

‘And as for the method itself, that is to say, the mode of transmission by the application of this law, this, in my opinion, can be worked out as follows:

 

‘In all the works that we will intentionally create on the basis of this law for the purpose of transmission to remote generations we shall intentionally introduce certain ‘inexactitudes,’ also conformable to law, and in these lawful inexactitudes we will place, in an intelligible manner, the content of some true knowledge or other in the possession of men of the present day.

 

” ‘At the same time, to serve as the “key” for deciphering those inexactitudes in that great law, we will insert in our works something like a legomonism, and we will secure its transmission from generation to generation through initiates of a special kind, whom we shall call “initiates of art. “

 

‘And we shall call them thus because the whole process of such a transmission of knowledge to remote generations through the Law of Sevenfoldness will not be natural but artificial. ” ‘And so, my most worthy and impartial colleagues ” ‘It must now be clear to you that if, for some reason or other, the useful information concerning knowledge already attained by men about past events on the Earth fails to reach our descendants through genuine initiates, then thanks to this new means of transmission I have proposed, men of future generations will always have the possibility of discovering and understanding for themselves, if not everything now existing on the Earth, at least those fragments of common knowledge which chance to reach them through these “works of the hands” of our contemporaries as well as through those various ceremonies existing today, in which, in accordance with this great Law of Sevenfoldness, and by means of these “artificial” indications of ours, we shall now put what we wish.’ “

 

“With these words the great Aksharpantziar concluded his report.

 

“This speech of his aroused considerable excitement, and a noisy discussion broke out among all the members of the club of the Adherents of Legomonism, with the outcome that then and there they unanimously decided to do as the great Aksharpantziar had suggested.

 

“A brief interval was then allowed for a meal, after which they all assembled again, and this second general meeting lasted throughout the night.

 

“They reached the unanimous decision to begin the following day making what are called ‘minia-images’—or, as the contemporary three-brained beings call them, ‘models’ —of various productions, and to try to devise the most suitable means of indication, on the principles laid down by the great Aksharpantziar, and then to bring these ‘minia-images,’ or ‘models,’ of theirs to the club where they would be exhibited and explained to the other members.

 

“Within two days, many of them already began bringing the ‘miniaimages’ they had made and showing them with the necessary explanations, while others began demonstrating every variety of those procedures which beings of that planet carried out on special occasions in the process of their ordinary existence, as they still do today.

 

“The models they brought included different combinations of colors and various forms of constructions and buildings, and the being-manifestations they demonstrated included the playing of different musical instruments, the singing of every kind of melody, and also the exact representation of certain experiencings foreign to them, and so on and so forth.

 

“Shortly thereafter, for the sake of convenience, the members of the club divided themselves into a number of groups, and devoted each seventh part of the period of time they called a ‘week’—or, as they would say, each ‘day’—to the presentation and explanation of their productions relating to one particular branch of knowledge.

 

“Here it is interesting to note that this definite period of the flow of time known as a ‘week’ has always been divided into seven days, and this division was made by the beings of the continent of Atlantis, who expressed in it that same Law of Sevenfoldness, with which they were quite familiar.

 

“On the continent of Atlantis the days of the week were called as follows:

 

Adashsikra Evosikra Gevorgsikri

 

Midosikra Maikosikra Lookosikra Soniasikri

 

“These names changed many times and at present the beings there name the days of the week thus:

 

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

 

“Well then, as I have just told you, they devoted each day of the week to productions in one or another special branch of knowledge—either works of their hands, or some other form of consciously designed being-manifestation “Thus, Monday was devoted to the first group, and this day was called the ‘day of religious and civil ceremonies’, “Tuesday was allotted to the second group, and was called the ‘day of architecture’,”Wednesday was called the ‘day of painting’, “Thursday, the ‘day of religious and popular dances’, “Friday, the ‘day of sculpture’, “Saturday, the ‘day of the mysteries’ or, as it was also called, the ‘day of the theater’, “Sunday, the ‘day of music and song”On Monday, that is, on the day of religious and civil ceremonies, the learned beings of the first group demonstrated various ceremonies in which the ‘fragments of knowledge’ selected for transmission were indicated by means of inexactitudes in the Law of Sevenfoldness, chiefly through inexactitudes in the law-conformable movements of the participants.

 

“Let us suppose, for instance, that the leader of the given ceremony, the priest or, according to contemporaries, the minister, had to raise his arms toward Heaven.

 

“This posture of his infallibly demanded, in accordance with the Law of Sevenfoldness, that his feet should be placed in a certain position, but these Babylonian learned beings intentionally placed the feet of the leader of the ceremony not as they would normally be placed in accordance with this law, but ‘otherwise. ‘

 

“And in general it was just in these ‘otherwises’ that the learned beings of this group, by means of a conventional what is called ‘alphabet,’ indicated in the postures of the participants in the given religious ceremony the ideas they intended to transmit to their remote descendants.

 

“On Tuesday, the day of architecture, the learned beings belonging to the second group brought various models for buildings and other constructions designed to last a very long time.

 

“And they planned these buildings not in exact accordance with the stability ensuing from the Law of Sevenfoldness, nor as the beings there were mechanically accustomed to do, but ‘otherwise.’

 

“For instance, according to all the data, the cupola of a certain construction had to rest on four columns of a certain thickness and definite strength.

 

“But they placed this cupola on only three columns, and they calculated the reciprocal thrust—or, as it is also expressed, the ‘reciprocal resistance’ ensuing from the Law of Sevenfoldness for supporting the surplanetary weight—not from the columns alone, but also from other unusual combinations ensuing from the same Law of Sevenfoldness, which was known to the mass of ordinary beings of that time, in other words, they calculated the required resistance of the columns chiefly by taking into account the force of the weight of the cupola itself.

 

“Or to give another example a certain cornerstone, according to all the data established there, both mechanically from the practice of centuries and thanks to the fully conscious calculations of certain beings with Reason, ought in-fallibly to have a definite mass corresponding to a certain force of resistance, but on the contrary, they cut and set this cornerstone in such a way that it did not correspond at all to the aforementioned data, and on the basis of the Law of Sevenfoldness they calculated the mass and force of resistance required for the support of the superimposed weight from the setting of the lower stones, which in their turn they did not set according to the established custom but according to calculations based on the manner of setting the still lower stones, and so on.

 

“And it was just by setting these stones in these unusual architectural combinations derived from the Law of Sevenfoldness that they indicated, also by means of a conventional ‘alphabet,’ the content of some useful information

 

“This group of learned members of the club of the Adherents of Legomonism also indicated what they wished in their minia-images, or models, of proposed constructions by utilizing the law called ‘Deivibritzkar,’ that is, the law of the ‘action of vibrations arising in the atmosphere of en-closed spaces.

 

“This law, no knowledge of which has reached contemporary beings of that planet, was then well known to the beings there, who were quite aware that the size and form of an enclosed space, and also the volume of air it contains, influence beings in a particular way.

 

“Utilizing this law, they indicated their various ideas as follows:

 

“Let us suppose that, in keeping with the character and purpose of some building or other, and in accordance with the Law of Sevenfoldness and the practice established by centuries, its interior would necessarily evoke certain sensations in a definite lawful sequence.

 

“Then, by utilizing the law of Deivibritzkar, they designed the interior of this proposed building in such a way that these sensations would be evoked in the beings who entered, not in the anticipated lawful sequence but in some other order.

 

“And it was just in these deviations from the lawful sequence of sensations that they inserted what they wished to transmit.

 

“Wednesday, the day of painting, was devoted to the study of the combinations of different colors.

 

“On that day the learned beings of this group brought for demonstration all sorts of objects for domestic use made of very durable colored materials, such as ‘carpets,’ ‘fabrics,’ and ‘chinkrooaries,’ that is, drawings in various colors on skins specially tanned to last many centuries.

 

“On these objects were drawn, or embroidered in many-colored threads, various scenes of nature on that planet and different forms of beings breeding there.

 

“Before continuing to speak about the way in which these terrestrial learned beings indicated certain fragments of knowledge in their combinations of colors, I must point out one fact concerning this subject, which is most distressing for your favorites and which took place in their presence, again on account of those abnormal forms of daily existence established by them themselves.

 

“This fact I wish to explain to you concerns the gradual deterioration in the quality of those ‘organs of perception’ which are formed in the presence of every kind of being, especially the organ that interests us at present, namely, the organ for perceiving and distinguishing what is called the ‘blending of center-of-gravity vibrations,’ which reach their planet from the spaces of the Universe.

 

“I am referring to what is known as the ‘common integral vibration issuing from all sources of actualizing,’ which the learned being Aksharpantziar called the ‘white ray,’ and also to the separate blendings of ‘center-of-gravity vibrations,’ which are perceived and distinguished by beings as different ‘tonalities of color.’

 

“You must know that from the time of the arising of the three-brained beings of the planet Earth, before the period when the organ kundabuffer was implanted in them, and later when this organ was totally removed from their presence, and even much later, beginning from the second transapalnian catastrophe almost up to the time of our third flight in person to the surface of that planet, the organ of sight was actualized in them with the same ‘sensitivity of perception’ as in the common presence of all ordinary three-brained beings of the whole of our Great Universe.

 

“During these periods I have mentioned, in all the three-brained beings arising on your planet, this organ was formed with the requisite sensitivity to perceive the blendings of the separate ‘center-of-gravity vibrations’ of the ‘white ray,’ and to distinguish one-third of all the ‘tonalities of color’ found in general in the presences of the planets as well as in all other cosmic concentrations, great and small.

 

“Objective Science has precisely established that the number of separate blendings of ‘center-of-gravity vibrations’ issuing from the ‘common integral vibration,’ that is, the number of ‘tonalities of color’ is exactly equal to one ‘hooltanpanas’ which, according to the calculations of the terrestrial three-brained beings, would amount to 5, 764, 801 tonalities.

 

“Only a third of this total number of blendings or tonalities—with the exception of the one tonality which is accessible only to the perception of our All-Autocratic Endlessness—that is, 1, 921, 600 tonalities, can be perceived as ‘different colors’ by all ordinary beings on whatever planet of our Great Universe they arise.

 

“But if the three-brained beings complete the perfecting of their highest part, and their organ for the perception of visibility thereby acquires the sensitivity of what is called ‘olooestesnokhnian sight,’ they can then distinguish two-thirds of the total number of tonalities existing in the Universe which, according to terrestrial calculation, amounts to 3, 843, 200 different tonalities of color.

 

“And only those three-brained beings who perfect their highest being-part to the state of what is called ‘Ishmetch’ become able to perceive and distinguish the total number of blendings or tonalities, with the exception of that one tonality which, as I have already told you, is accessible to the perception of our All-Maintaining Creator alone.

 

“Although I intend to explain to you later in detail how and why in the presences of ‘insapalnian cosmic concentrations’ every definite formation acquires, from evolving and involving processes, the property of producing various effects upon this organ of beings, nevertheless I do not consider it superfluous to touch upon this question now.

 

“First of all it must be said that the ‘common integral vibration,’ like every already definite cosmic formation, is formed according to the completed result of the fundamental cosmic law of the holy Heptaparaparshinokh, namely, that cosmic law which the three-brained beings of the planet Earth of the Babylonian period called the ‘Law of Sevenfoldness’, in other words, this vibration consists of seven complexes of results or, as is sometimes said, seven ‘classes of vibrations’ issuing from cosmic sources, whose arising and further action depend on seven other sources, which in their turn arise and depend on seven further ones, and so on right up to the first most holy, unique, seven-propertied vibration issuing from the Most Holy Prime Source.

 

And all these together compose the ‘common integral vibration’ of all sources of actualization of everything that exists in the Universe, and later, thanks to their transformations, they actualize in the presences of the cosmic insapalnian concentrations the number of different tonalities of color I have mentioned.

 

“As for the details of the ‘most holy, unique, seven-propertied vibration,’ these you will understand only when I have explained to you in its proper time, as I have already many times promised you, all about the great fundamental laws of world-creation and world-maintenance.

 

“And meanwhile, as regards this question, you ought to know that when this ‘common integral vibration,’ which the terrestrial three-brained beings call the ‘white ray,’ enters with the presence proper to it into the spheres of its possible transformation in the presence of an insapalnian planet, there occurs in it, just as in the case of every definite cosmic arising having the possibility of further actualization, that cosmic process called ‘djartklom’, that is to say, it itself remains as a presence, but its essence disintegrates, as it were, and en-genders processes for evolution and involution by the separate ‘center-of-gravity vibrations’ of its arising, and these processes are actualized thus certain groups of ‘center-of-gravity vibrations’ separate themselves from the others and are transformed into third ones, and so on.

 

“During these transformations, the ‘common integral vibration,’ or ‘white ray,’ acts through its ‘center-of-gravity vibrations’ upon other ordinary processes taking place nearby in intraplanetary and surplanetary arisings and decompositions, and owing to ‘kindred vibrations,’ and in accordance with surrounding conditions, its center-of-gravity vibrations blend and become part of the common presence of these definite intraplanetary or surplanetary formations in which these processes are taking place.

 

“So, my boy, during my personal descents to the planet Earth, I noted, at first without any conscious intention on the part of my Reason, and later I quite intentionally verified, the progressive worsening of this being-organ in all your favorites.

 

“Deteriorating century by century, the ‘sensitivity of perception’ of that organ, by means of which there chiefly proceeds in the presence of three-brained beings what is called the ‘automatic saturation by externals’—which serves as the basis for the possibility of natural self-perfecting—had been diminished to such a point that at the time of our fifth stay there, during the period called by contemporary beings the period of the ‘greatness of Babylon,’ your favorites could perceive and distinguish the blendings of the ‘center-of-gravity vibrations’ of the white ray at most up to the third degree of its ‘sevenfold strata,’ that is, only up to 343 different tonalities of color.

 

“Here it is interesting to note that quite a number of the three-brained beings of the Babylonian epoch already suspected the gradual deterioration of the sensitivity of this organ of theirs, and certain of them even founded a new society in Babylon, which launched a peculiar ‘movement’ among the painters of that time.

 

“This peculiar ‘movement’ had the following program to find out and elucidate the truth only by means of the tonalities existing between white and black.

 

“And they executed all their works using exclusively the tonalities from black to white.

 

“When I found out about that particular ‘movement’ among the Babylonian painters, they were already using about fifteen hundred quite distinct shades of the color ‘gray. ‘

 

“This new ‘movement’ in painting made a great stir among the beings who were striving to learn truth at least in something, and it even gave rise to another and still more peculiar ‘movement,’ this time among the beings then known in Babylon as ‘olfactorists,’ who studied and devised new combinations of ‘concentrations of vibrations’ acting in a particular way on the sense of smell of beings, and producing definite effects on their general psyche, that is to say, among those beings who made it their aim to find the truth by means of smells.

 

“Certain enthusiasts of this study, in imitation of the followers of the new ‘movement’ in painting, founded a similar society, the stated purpose of which was: ‘to seek the truth in the nuances of smells given off between the moment of the action of cold at freezing and the moment of the action of heat at decomposition.’

 

“As the painters had done with colors, they also found between these two limits of smell about seven hundred very definite gradations, which they employed in their experiments.

 

“I do not know where these two peculiar ‘movements’ in Babylon would have led, if a newly appointed mayor of the city, soon after our arrival there, had not started prosecuting the followers of that second ‘movement’ since, with their already sufficiently keen sense of smell, they had begun to get wind of and unwittingly to expose certain of his ‘shady dealings,’ with the result that he used every possible means to suppress everything connected not only with that second ‘movement,’ but with the first as well.

 

“As regards that organ of theirs about which we began to speak, namely, the organ for perceiving the visibility of cosmic arisings outside themselves, the deterioration of its sensitivity continued after the Babylonian period and reached such a point that during our last stay on the surface of this planet your favorites, instead of the 1, 921, 600 ‘tonalities of color’ which they ought to have perceived, had the possibility of perceiving and distinguishing only the result of the penultimate ‘sevenfold crystallization of the white ray,’ that is, forty-nine tonalities, and even then only some of your favorites had that capacity, while the rest, perhaps the majority, were deprived even of that.

 

“But what is most interesting as regards the progressive deterioration of that most important part of their common presence is the sorry farce that results, which is that those contemporary three-brained beings who can still manage to distinguish this miserable fraction of the total number of tonalities—merely forty-nine—look down with disdain and self-conceit upon those other beings who have lost the capacity to distinguish even this insignificant number, as upon beings with an abnormal deficiency in that organ, and speak of them as afflicted by the disease called ‘Daltonism.’

 

“The last seven blendings of the ‘center-of-gravity vibrations’ of the ‘white ray’ were called in Babylon, just as now among the contemporary beings of that planet, by the following names:

 

Red Orange Yellow

 

Green Blue Indigo

Violet

 

“Now listen to the way in which the learned beings belonging to the group of painters indicated the useful information and various fragments of knowledge they had attained, through lawful inexactitudes of the great cosmic law called the ‘Law of Sevenfoldness,’ by means of the combinations of these seven independent definite colors and other, secondary tonalities derived from them.

 

“In accordance with that definite property of the ‘common integral vibration,’ or the ‘white ray,’ during the process of its transformations about which I have just spoken and which was already familiar to the learned Babylonian painters, each of its ‘center-of-gravity vibrations’ or one of the separate colors of the ‘white ray’ always ensues from another and is transformed into a third, for example, the color orange is obtained from red, and in turn passes into yellow, and so on and so forth.

 

“So, whenever these learned painters of Babylon made their pictures, or wove or embroidered with colored threads, they arranged the different tonalities—whether lengthwise or crosswise or at the points of intersection of the lines of color—not in the lawful sequence in which this process normally takes place in accordance with the Law of Sevenfold-ness, but ‘otherwise’, and it was in these equally lawful ‘otherwises’ that they placed the substance of certain information and knowledge.

 

“On Thursday, namely, the day dedicated to sacred and popular dances, the learned beings of this group presented with the necessary explanations all possible forms of religious and popular dances, some already in existence which they only modified, and other quite new ones created by them.

 

“And in order that you should have a better idea and understanding of the way in which they indicated what they wished in these dances, you must know that the learned beings of this time had long been aware that, in accordance with the Law of Sevenfoldness, every posture or movement of any being always consists of seven ‘mutually balanced’ tensions arising in seven independent parts of his whole presence, and that each of these seven parts in their turn consists of seven different what are called ‘lines of movement,’ and that each line has seven what are called ‘points of dynamic concentration’, and finally that all this is repeated in the same way and in the same sequence, but always on a diminishing scale, down to the minutest particles of the whole body, called ‘atoms.’

 

“And so, in the movements of their dances, which were lawful in their accordance with each other, these learned dancers inserted intentional inexactitudes, also lawful, indicating in them in a certain order the information and knowledge they wished to transmit.

 

“On Friday, the day devoted to sculpture, the learned beings belonging to this group brought and exhibited minia-images, or models, made from a material called ‘clay.’

 

“Those minia-images, or models, which they brought for exhibition represented, as a rule, beings like themselves, singly or in groups, or beings of all sorts of other exterior forms breeding on their planet.

 

“Among these works were also various ‘allegorical beings,’ represented with the head of a being of one form, the body of another, the limbs of a third, and so on.

 

“The learned beings of this group indicated all that was necessary by the introduction of lawful inexactitudes in connection with what was then called the ‘law of proportions.’

 

“You should know that all the three-brained beings of the Earth, and especially of course the sculptors of that period, already knew that, in accordance with the great Law of Sevenfoldness, the dimensions of any specific part of any whole being derive from the seven dimensions of other, secondary parts, which in their turn derive from seven tertiary parts, and so on and so forth.

 

“Therefore, the dimensions of each large or small part of the whole planetary body of a being are larger or smaller in exact proportion to the dimensions of the other parts.

 

“For a clear understanding of what I have just said, the face of any three-brained being can serve as a good example.

 

“The facial dimensions of every three-centered being in general, as also the facial dimensions of the three-centered beings of the planet Earth, are the result of the dimensions of the seven fundamental parts of the whole body, and the dimensions of each separate part of the face are the result of seven different dimensions of the whole face. For example, the dimensions of the nose of any being are determined by the dimensions of the other parts of the face, and this nose in its turn has seven definite what are called ‘surfaces,’ and these surfaces also have seven lawful dimensions, down to the atom itself of this face of theirs, which is one of the seven independent dimensions of the whole planetary body.

 

“Now it was in the deviations from these lawful dimensions that the learned sculptors among the members of the club of the Adherents of Legomonism indicated all kinds of useful information and fragments of knowledge that they intended to transmit to beings of remote generations.

 

“On Saturday—the day of the mysteries, or the day of the theater—the demonstrations that were given by the learned members of this group were the most interesting of all and, as is said, the most ‘popular.’

 

“I myself also preferred these Saturdays to all the other days of the week and tried not to miss one of them I preferred them because the demonstrations given on those days by the beings of this group frequently provoked such spontaneous and sincere laughter among all the other members of this section of the club that I sometimes forgot which three-centered beings I was with, and allowed that being-impulse to manifest itself in me which properly arises only among beings of the same nature.

 

“At the outset, the learned beings of that group demonstrated before the other members of the club various forms of being-experiencings and manifestations. Then all of them together selected from these demonstrations what best corresponded to different details of one or the other mystery

 

already in existence or newly created by themselves, and only afterward, by means of intentionally allowed deviations from the principles of the Law of Sevenfoldness in the being-experiencings and manifestations that they reproduced, did they indicate what they wished to transmit.

 

“In this connection it must be noted that although in former times ‘mysteries’—some of which contained many instructive ideas known to antiquity—did sometimes happen to reach beings of later epochs, having passed automatically from generation to generation, in recent times those mysteries in which the learned members of the club of the Adherents of Legomonism intentionally introduced all manner of knowledge, calculating that it would reach their remote posterity, have almost totally ceased to exist.

 

“The mysteries that had been incorporated in the process of the ordinary existence of your favorites many centuries earlier began to disappear soon after the Babylonian period At first their place was taken by what are called ‘kesbaadji’ or, as they are now called on the continent of Europe, ‘puppet plays,’ but afterward they were completely supplanted by the ‘theatrical shows’ or ‘spectacles’ that at present are one of the forms of that contemporary art of theirs which has a particularly maleficent action in the progressive shrinking of their psyche.

 

“These theatrical spectacles came to replace the mysteries at the beginning of the contemporary civilization after the beings, to whom only ‘odds and ends’ of information had passed down about the activities of the learned Babylonian ‘mysterists,’ began trying to imitate them and set about doing, as it were, the same thing.

 

“From then on, the other beings called these imitators of the mysterists by such names as ‘players,’ ‘comedians,’ ‘actors,’ and nowadays they even call them ‘artists,’ of whom, I may say, very many have sprung up during recent times.

 

“Well then, these learned beings of Babylon belonging to the group of mysterists indicated a variety of useful information and knowledge they had attained by means of what is called the ‘flow of associative movements’ of the participants in these mysteries.

 

“Although the terrestrial three-brained beings of that time were well acquainted with the law of the ‘flow of associative movements,’ no information whatever about these laws has reached contemporary beings.

 

“Since this ‘flow of associative movements’ does not proceed in the presence of the three-brained beings who please you in the same way as in the presence of other three-brained beings in general, and since there were quite special reasons for this, proper to them alone, I must first of all explain it to you in rather more detail.

 

“The process itself is the same in them as in us, but in us it takes place only when we are intentionally resting in order to allow the whole functioning of our common presence to be free to transform, without hindrance from our will, every variety of being-energy required for an all-round active existence, whereas in them these various being-energies can now arise only during their total inactivity, that is, during what they call their ‘sleep,’ and then of course only after a fashion.

 

“However, like all other three-brained beings of the whole of our Great Universe, they consist of three separate independent spiritualized parts, each having a central place of concentration for all its functioning in a localization of its own, which they call a ‘brain ‘ Thus every impression, whether coming from without or arising from within, is perceived independently, in accordance with its nature, by each of these brains of theirs And afterward— as is also proper to the presence of every kind of being without distinction of brain-system—these impressions, together with previous ones, form a totality of data which, thanks to accidental shocks, evoke an independent association in each of these separate brains.

 

“So, my boy, ever since your favorites completely ceased consciously to actualize in their common presence being-partkdolgduty—owing to which alone there can arise in beings, from associations of various kinds, what is called a ‘sane comparative mentation’ as well as the possibility of conscious active manifestation—their separate brains, already associating quite independently, have engendered in one and the same common presence three being-impulses of different sources, and thanks to this, they gradually have acquired, as it were, three personalities having nothing in common with each other in respect of needs and interests.

 

“More than half of all the anomalies arising in the general psyche of your favorites, particularly in recent times, are due in the first place to the process occurring in their entire presence of three different kinds of independent associations, evoking in them being-impulses from three localizations of different natures and properties, and in the second place to the connection that exists between these three separate localizations, in them as in the presence of every kind of three-brained being, and which is predetermined by Great Nature for other functionings of their common presence, and finally, to the fact that every impression perceived and sensed, that is, every shock, arouses associations of three different kinds of impressions in the three localizations, and consequently evokes three totally different kinds of being-impulses in one and the same presence So, on account of all this, a number of experiencings are almost always proceeding in them simultaneously, and each by itself evokes in their whole being a desire for a corresponding manifestation, and thus is actualized a corresponding movement in accordance with the separate parts of their whole presence.

 

“And these associative experiencings of different sources proceed in their common presence and flow one from the other also in accordance with the Law of Sevenfoldness.

 

“The learned members of the club of the Adherents of Legomonism in Babylon who belonged to this group indicated the knowledge they wished to transmit in the movements and actions of those taking part in the mysteries in the following way:

 

“For instance, in fulfilling his role in a given mystery according to lawful associations, a participant, as a result of some new impression evoked in one or another of his brains, ought to have reacted by some particular manifestation or movement, but instead, he would intentionally enact the manifestation or movement not as it ought to have been done in accordance with the Law of Sevenfoldness, but ‘otherwise’, and in these ‘otherwises’ the learned beings of this group inserted in a definite way what they wished to transmit to distant generations.

 

“And now, my boy, in order that you should have a concrete picture of these Saturday demonstrations, which I was always glad to attend as a rest from my intense activities at that time, I will tell you how these learned mysterists demonstrated before the other learned members of the club of the Adherents of Legomonism various being-experiencings and manifestations according to the flow of associations, from which certain fragments were selected for future mysteries.

 

“For these demonstrations they constructed in one of the large halls of the club a specially raised platform, which they then called the ‘reflector of reality,’ but beings of later epochs, who chanced to receive information about these learned Babylonian mysterists and began imitating them and doing, as it were, the same thing, called and still call this sort of construction a ‘stage. ‘

 

“Well then, at the beginning, two of the participants would always come onto this ‘reflector of reality’ or ‘stage’, and then usually one of them would stand for a while and, as it were, listen to his own ‘dartkhelkhloostnian’ state or, as it is sometimes called, the state of his own inner ‘associative psychic experiencings. ‘

 

“Listening in this way, it would become clear to his Reason that, for instance, the sum total of his associative experiencings took the form of an urgent impulse to punch the face of another being, the sight of whom always aroused in him by association a certain series of impressions already present in him, which invariably evoked in his general psyche disagreeable emotions, offensive to his ‘conscious feeling of himself.’

 

“Let us suppose that these disagreeable experiencings are always produced in him when he sees a ‘trodokhakhoon,’ a professional whom contemporary beings there call a ‘policeman.’

 

“As soon as this ‘dartkhelkhloostnian’ psychic state and impulse of his become perfectly clear to his Reason, he recognizes, on the one hand, that in existing conditions of external social existence it is impossible for him to gratify this impulse to the full, and on the other hand, being already perfected in Reason and thus well aware of his dependence on the automatic functioning of the other parts of his common presence, he understands clearly that the fulfillment of some urgent being-duty of great importance to those around him is contingent on the gratification of this impulse And having thought over everything in this way, he decides to gratify this urge of his as best he can by doing at least a ‘moral injury’ to that ‘trodokhakhoon,’ that is, by evoking in him associations of an offensive nature.

 

“With this object in view, he turns to the other learned being who had come onto the stage with him, and treating him now as a ‘trodokhakhoon’ or policeman, he says:

 

‘Hey, you! Don’t you know your duty? Don’t you see what’s going on over there ?’ With this, he points in the direction of another room of the club where the other participants in the demonstrations of that day are waiting ‘Those two fellows, a “soldier” and a “cobbler,” are fighting in the street, disturbing the public peace, and here you are leisurely strolling about imagining yourself God knows who and leering at the passing wives of honest and respectable citizens! Just you wait, you scamp! Through my chief, the head medical officer of this city, I’ll have you reported to your chief for negligence and breach of duty!’

 

“From that moment, the learned being who had spoken would assume the role of a physician because he had chanced to call his superior the ‘chief medical officer’ of the city, while the second learned being who had been called a ‘policeman’ would become a ‘policeman ‘ Two other learned participants would then immediately be called from the other room by the one who had assumed the role of policeman, and would take the roles of ‘cobbler’ and ‘soldier. ‘

 

“And these two latter learned beings would have to manifest themselves in these roles only because the first learned being, who in accordance with his ‘dartkhelkhloostnian’ state had assumed the role of a physician, had called them ‘cobbler’ and ‘soldier. ‘

 

“Well then, these three learned beings who were thus cast impromptu by the first, and were obliged to represent every kind of perception and manifestation lawfully corresponding to types foreign to them or, as your favorites would say, to play ‘borrowed roles’—namely, the roles of ‘cobbler,’ ‘soldier,’ and ‘policeman’—went on to enact their experiencings and the reflex-manifestations resulting from them, thanks to the being-property called ‘ikhriltatzkakra,’ a property well known to the learned beings of the planet Earth of that period, who had already perfected their presence up to the ableness of actualizing this property.

 

“Three-centered beings can acquire this being-property called ‘ikhriltatzkakra’ only after having personally acquired in their presence what is called ‘egoaitoorassian will,’ which in turn can be obtained only thanks to being-partkdolgduty, that is, to conscious labor and intentional suffering.

 

“So, in this way the learned members of the group of mysterists then in Babylon became players of ‘borrowed roles’ and demonstrated before the other members of the club the experiencings, and the actions ensuing from them, produced under the direction of their well-informed Reason.

 

“And then, as I have said, with the other members of the club of the Adherents of Legomonism who were present, they selected from the being-impulses thus demonstrated those which best corresponded to their aim, and which had to be experienced and manifested in specific actions according to the law of the flow of associations coming from different sources, and only then did they include those selected in the details of some particular mystery.

 

“Here it is important to emphasize that the learned three-brained beings who belonged to the group of the mysterists in Babylon did indeed reproduce amazingly well and accurately the subjective features of the perceptions and manifestations of various types foreign to them.

 

“And they were able to do this not only because they possessed the being-property of ‘ikhriltatzkakra,’ but also because, like all the learned beings of the planet Earth of that time, they were well versed in what is called the ‘law of type,’ and were well aware of the twenty-seven quite distinct types of three-brained beings on their planet, and even of what the beings of each type would inevitably perceive in this or that situation, how they would perceive it, and what would have to be their reaction.

 

“As regards this being-property called ‘ikhriltatzkakra,’ I must add that only this property gives beings the possibility of restraining themselves within the limits of the impulses and promptings evoked at any given moment in their common presence by the associations flowing from that brain in which they themselves have consciously set in motion one or another series of impressions already present in them, and it is only thanks to this property that beings have the possibility of perceiving all the details of the psyche of a ‘type’ they have thoroughly studied and of manifesting themselves according to that type and fully impersonating it.

 

“In my opinion, the absence of just that property has caused most of the anomalies that have resulted in your three-brained favorites becoming possessed of such a strange psyche.

 

“You must know that in the presence of the three-brained beings there today, as in the presence of every kind of three-brained being in general, all new impressions accumulate in the three separate brains in the order of what is called ‘kinship,’ and afterward take part—along with impressions previously registered—in the associations evoked in these three separate brains by every new perception in accordance with and depending on the ‘center-of-gravity impulses’ present in them at that moment.

 

“So, my boy, in view of the fact that there is a continuous flow in the presence of your contemporary favorites of three kinds of independent associations, which likewise continue to evoke different kinds of being-impulses, and furthermore, that your favorites have entirely ceased to actualize consciously all those cosmic results by means of which alone the being-property of ‘ikhriltatzkakra’ can be acquired in three-brained beings, then in view of all this, the common presence of each of your contemporary favorites during the process of his existence consists, as it were, of three quite separate personalities, which have and can have nothing in common in respect of either the nature of their arising or their manifestations.

 

“Hence there proceeds in their common presence that particularity of theirs, which is that with one part of their essence they always wish one thing, at the same time with another part they definitely wish something else, while thanks to the third part, they actually do something quite different.

 

“In short, what takes place in their psyche is just what our dear teacher Mullah Nasr Eddin defines by the term ‘a real mish-mash. ‘

 

“To return to the demonstrations of the Babylonian learned beings belonging to the group of the mysterists, I must add that in the course of the action the number of participants gradually increased as other colleagues joined in to meet the demands of various intentionally evoked associative happenings.

 

“Besides accurately representing the perceptions and automatic manifestations of the role that happened to be allotted to him, and which were proper to the personality of a type quite foreign to him, each participant had to manage while he was fulfilling that role to find some plausible pretext for going out to change into a corresponding costume.

 

“And they changed their costumes in order to manifest themselves more clearly and in a more striking way in the fulfillment of their roles, so that the other members of the club of the Adherents of Legomonism who verified and selected the fragments for the future mysteries could follow the action more easily and make the best selection from everything they saw.

 

“On Sunday, namely the day dedicated to music and song, the learned beings belonging to this group produced every kind of ‘melody’ on various ‘sound-producing instruments,’ as well as with their voices, and then explained to all the other learned beings how the knowledge they wished to transmit was indicated in these works of theirs.

 

“They also had in view to implant these works in the customs of different communities, calculating that the melodies they created, passing from generation to generation, would reach men of the remote future who, in deciphering them, would discover a knowledge attained on the Earth long before and use it for the good of their ordinary existence.

 

“Before telling you how the learned beings of this group inserted their indications in these instrumental and vocal productions, I must first explain certain particularities of the perceptive organ of hearing in the common presence of every kind of being.

 

“Among these particularities is the property called ‘vibroechonitanko. ‘

 

“You must know that those parts of the brains of beings which Objective Science calls ‘khlodistomaticules’—certain of which the learned physicians on your planet call ‘cerebral nerve ganglia’—are composed of crystallized ‘nirioonossian vibrations,’ which in general arise in every being once his formation is complete, as a result of the process of all kinds of perceptions by their organ of hearing, and these ‘khlodistomaticules,’ under the action of similar but not yet crystallized vibrations, engender in the corresponding region of a given brain the property of ‘vibroechonitanko’ or, as it is sometimes called, ‘remorse. ‘

 

“In accordance with the foresight of Great Nature, these ‘khlodistomaticules’ serve in the presence of beings as factors enabling the arising of the process of association at those moments when inner promptings are absent or stimuli from outside do not reach their brains.

 

“As for the still uncrystallized ‘nirioonossian vibrations’ that enter the common presence of beings, these are emitted either by the ‘vocal cords’ of every kind of being or by certain artificial sound-producing instruments they have invented.

 

“When the vibrations arising from those sources enter the presence of beings and touch the ‘khlodistomaticules’ of one or another brain, they produce, in relation to the general functioning of the whole being, this process of ‘vibroechonitanko. ‘

 

“The second particularity of the functioning of the perceptive organ of hearing is that in general the vibrations obtained from the sequence of sounds of any melody evoke associations in the presence of beings in just that one of the three brains in which at that moment the ‘momentum of what has just been experienced’ is sustained most intensely, and as a result the sequence of impulses evoked for inner experiencing usually follows an automatic order.

 

“Well then, these learned musicians and singers in the city of Babylon combined their melodies in such a way that the sequence of vibrations of the sounds would evoke in beings a sequence of associations, and therefore impulses for inner experiencings, not in the usual automatic order, that is to say, they combined the melodies so that the sequences of vibrations, on entering into the common presence of beings, would evoke the ‘vibroechonitanko’ in the ‘khlodistomaticules’ not of just one brain, as usually takes place—namely, the brain in which the associations predominate at the given moment—but now in one brain, now in another, and now in the third Further, they predetermined the quality or, as they say, the ‘frequency of vibrations’ of the sounds which would affect one or another brain.

 

“They were completely familiar with all this, that is, they knew from which vibrations data are formed in this or that brain of the beings, and for which new perceptions these data might serve as what are called ‘determinants of new results.

 

“Owing to the combinations of sequences of sounds, there arose simultaneously in the presence of beings different sorts of impulses evoking various contradictory sensations, which in their turn gave rise to unusual experiencings and reflex movements not proper to them.

 

“And indeed, my boy, the sequence of sounds they combined did have an exceedingly strange effect on all the beings whose presence they entered

 

“Even in me, a being cast, as they would say, ‘in another mold,’ various being-impulses were engendered, and followed one another in an unusual sequence.

 

“And this happened because the sounds of their melodies, combined in a definite sequence, upon entering my common presence underwent ‘djartklom’ or, to put it in another way, the sounds were ‘sorted out’ and acted equally upon my ‘khlodistomaticules’ of all three sources, with the consequence that the associations in my three independent brains—coming from similar but differently natured series of impressions—although proceeding simultaneously and with an equal intensity, engendered in my presence three quite different promptings.

 

“For instance, the localization of my consciousness or, as your favorites would say, my ‘thinking center,’ engendered in my common presence, let us suppose, the impulse of ‘joy’, the second localization in me, or my ‘feeling center,’ engendered the impulse called ‘sorrow’, and the localization of the body itself or, as once again your favorites would call it, my ‘moving center,’ engendered the impulse of ‘religiousness.’

 

“And it was just in these unaccustomed impulses, evoked in the beings by their instrumental and vocal melodies, that the learned members of that group indicated what they wished to transmit.

 

“And so, my boy, after all I have related, I imagine you have enough material to understand why and how, during my fifth stay in person on your planet, I happened to be a witness of the events that gave rise to that famous word ‘art,’ and in what connection it was first used and what meaning was given to it in that period which your contemporary favorites call the ‘Babylonian civilization.’

 

“I shall now speak about certain facts, the knowledge of which will enable you to picture clearly to yourself and understand how greatly the ‘logical mentation’ in all these three-brained beings pleasing to you has deteriorated, and in so short a time that, without the least resistance on the part of their individuality, they have allowed themselves to become the ‘slaves’ of those few ‘nonentities’ among them who, having totally lost the divine impulse of Conscience, have created for their egoistic aims from this empty word ‘art’ that chanced to reach them an ‘unerring factor’ for the final atrophy in all of them of the data still surviving for conscious being.

 

“During the period of my sixth and last stay there in person, I heard everywhere about this contemporary ‘art’ of theirs and came in contact with its results, and when I had made clear to myself what it was all about, I recalled my Babylonian friends of an earlier time and their good intentions toward their remote descendants, and set about verifying in detail, whenever opportunities arose, just what were the results of everything I had happened to witness, which I have just been telling you about.

 

‘Initiating you now into the impressions, kept secret from strangers, which became fixed in my common presence during my last stay in person on the surface of your planet as a result of my conscious perceptions of this contemporary ‘art’ of theirs, my ‘I,’ with a profound being-impulse of pity, must now emphatically state that of all the fragments of knowledge attained by the beings of the Babylonian civilization—fragments which, it must be admitted were rich in content for the good of ordinary existence—absolutely nothing has reached the beings of contemporary civilization apart from a few empty words without any inner content.

 

“Not only did nothing whatever reach them of all the fragments of general knowledge which the learned beings of the club of the Adherents of Legomonism had indicated in ‘lawful inexactitudes’ in the sacred law of Heptaparaparshinokh or, as they called it, the ‘Law of Sevenfoldness,’ but in the interval of time between these two civilizations, their being-rumination has deteriorated so much that today they no longer know or even suspect the existence on their planet of this universal law.

 

“And as regards the word ‘art’ which, thanks to their strange Reason, has gotten ‘tangled up’ during this time with ‘the devil knows what,’ as they themselves would say, I must tell you that my special investigations made it clear to me that, among other words and expressions used by the learned beings of Babylon which automatically passed from generation to generation, this word ‘art’ happened to get into the vocabulary of certain three-brained beings, in whose presence the consequences of the properties of the organ kundabuffer had crystallized in a sequence and with a ‘reciprocal action’ that favored the arising of data in them for the being of ‘hasnamuss individuals ‘ And as these beings, for some reason or other, happened to like this word, they began using it for their egoistic aims, and gradually turned it into a ‘something’ which, though it still consists of ‘utter futility,’ has gradually been enveloped in a fairylike exterior, which now blinds every one of your favorites who keeps his attention on it a little longer than usual.

 

“Besides this word ‘art,’ quite a number of other words used in the discussions of the learned members of the club of the Adherents of Legomonism passed automatically from generation to generation, as well as some ‘foggy notions’ about certain definite conceptions of that time.

 

“Among these latter—as much for its name as for its caricature-like imitation—is their contemporary notion of the ‘theater. ‘

 

“You remember, I have told you that in Babylon both the hall and the demonstrations themselves of the learned beings belonging to the group of the mysterists were given the name ‘theater. ‘

 

“If I now enter into somewhat more detail about this contemporary theater of theirs, perhaps you will have enough material to understand how, in spite of all the good intentions and efforts of those ancient learned beings, scarcely anything of the true knowledge attained during the time of the Babylonian culture has reached the beings of contemporary European culture to which their art is largely indebted for that fairylike exterior I spoke of, and furthermore, you will grasp certain aspects of the maleficence of that famous contemporary ‘art. ‘

 

“As I have told you, a certain amount of information about the activities of the group of the mysterists reached the beings of the contemporary epoch who, wishing to imitate them also in this, began building special halls for this purpose, which they too called ‘theaters. ‘

 

“The three-brained beings of contemporary civilization quite frequently assemble in considerable numbers in these theaters of theirs to observe and presumably to study the various prepared manifestations of their ‘artists,’ as they have quite recently begun to call them, just as in Babylon the other learned members of the club of the Adherents of Legomonism studied the demonstrations of the learned beings of the group of the mysterists.

 

“These theaters have acquired the greatest importance in the ordinary process of existence of your favorites, and so they erect particularly imposing buildings for this purpose which, in most of their contemporary cities, rank among the most noteworthy constructions.

 

“Here, I think, it will do no harm to comment upon the misunderstanding connected with the word ‘artist.’

 

“This word was also passed down to your contemporary favorites from the Babylonian epoch, not as all the others were, that is, as empty words without any sense, but just as a distant echo of a word formerly used.

 

“You must know that at that time the learned members of the club of the Adherents of Legomonism were given a name by the other learned beings, who were well disposed toward them, a name which they adopted for themselves, and which your contemporary favorites would write as ‘Orpheist.’

 

“This word was formed from distinct roots of words then in use, which in contemporary times would signify ‘right’ and ‘essence.’ If someone was called that, it meant that he ‘rightly sensed the essence. ‘

 

“After the Babylonian period, this expression also passed automatically from generation to generation with almost the same meaning, but about two centuries ago, when certain beings with hasnamussian tendencies began wiseacring about that empty word ‘art,’ and when various ‘schools of art’ arose and everybody considered himself a follower of one or another of those schools, then, since they did not understand the genuine meaning of the word ‘art,’ and chiefly because one of these schools was named after a certain Orpheus, a figure invented by the ancient Greeks, they decided to coin a new word defining their ‘vocation’ more exactly.

 

“So in place of the expression ‘Orpheist’ they invented the word ‘artist,’ which was supposed to mean ‘he who is occupied with art.’

 

“In order that you may represent to yourself more clearly all the factors connected with this misunderstanding there, you must know first of all that before the second transapalnian catastrophe, when these favorites of yours still prepared themselves for responsible existence normally, as did all three-brained beings of our Great Universe, they had at their disposal for their ‘speech’—that is, for mutual intercourse through appropriate sounds, intentionally uttered— and could pronounce up to 341 different consonances or ‘letters. ‘

 

“But later on, when thanks as always to the same conditions of ordinary being-existence abnormally established by them, every property inherent in the presence of three-brained beings gradually deteriorated, this ‘beingableness’ also deteriorated and at such a rate that the beings of the Babylonian period could use for their conversation only seventy-seven definite sounds And thereafter the deterioration continued so rapidly that five centuries later your favorites could pronounce at most only thirty-six different ‘letters,’ and the beings of certain communities could not articulate even this small number of separate sounds.

 

“And so, my boy, information concerning the Babylonian period passed from one generation to another not only through what is called ‘oral transmission,’ but also by means of markings on certain durable materials, that is, ‘inscriptions’ consisting of conventional signs or letters, which stood for different ‘articulated being-sounds’ of that time When, at the beginning of the contemporary civilization, certain beings began to decipher these inscriptions, ‘a bit here and a bit there,’ and realized that they could not pronounce many of these ‘letters,’ they invented what is called a ‘written compromise.’

 

“This ‘written compromise’ was that, in place of any sign or letter which they could not pronounce, even though they sensed the ‘flavor’ of its pronunciation, they decided to use a somewhat similar letter contained in their alphabet at the time, and so that everybody should understand that it was not that letter but quite another, they always wrote beside it a letter of the ancient Romans, still existing, but already meaningless, called in English ‘h’ and by the contemporary French ‘ahsh.’

 

“From then on, all the rest of your favorites followed suit, namely, to each of these ‘suspicious’ letters they added this Roman ‘inheritance. ‘

 

“When this ‘written compromise’ was invented, there were about twenty-five of these ‘suspicious’ letters, but in the course of time, as their ability to pronounce deteriorated along with the increase of their wiseacring, the number of combined letters specially fabricated for such a ‘being-faculty’ diminished, and by the time the word !artist’ was invented only eight of these combinations remained, and in front of this notorious ‘h’ they wrote letters, partly ancient Greek and partly Latin, which produced the following ‘th,’ ‘ph,’ ‘gh,’ ‘ch,’ ‘sch,’ ‘kh,’ ‘dh,’ and ‘oh. ‘

 

“The basis for the misunderstanding I mentioned was the compromising sign ‘ph. ‘

 

“And this was so because this sign appeared both in the word by which the learned mysterists were designated and in the word which stood for a personality invented by the ancient Greeks, with whose name, as I have already said, one of their ‘schools of art’ had been connected, the result was that the representatives of terrestrial art I spoke of, with their quite bob-tailed Reason, then thought that this word merely indicated the followers of the ‘historical personality’ Orpheus, and since many of them did not consider themselves his followers, they invented the word ‘artist’ in its place.

 

“As you see, not every legacy of the ancient Romans turned out to be maleficent, since in the present case their little letter ‘h’ even became an inspiring factor for engendering in the presence of beings of subsequent generations—already without any initiative or ability of their own— the ‘being-power’ to substitute for the long-established expression ‘Orpheist’ this new word ‘artist. ‘

 

“Here I must tell you about something very strange concerning the gradual atrophy in the presence of all the terrestrial three-brained beings there of this ‘being-ableness’ to reproduce the sounds required for verbal intercourse.

 

“The point is that the deterioration of this capacity does not proceed at the same rate in the psychic and organic functioning of the planetary bodies of all the beings in every generation, but it alternates, as it were, at different times and on different parts of the surface of this planet, affecting at one time more the psychic and at another time more the organic part of the functioning of their planetary body.

 

“A very good illustration of what I have just said is afforded by the sensation of the ‘taste’ and the capacity to pronounce two different sounds or letters known and used there by almost all the contemporary beings breeding on all parts of the surface of your planet, and passed down to them by the ancient Greeks from times long past.

 

“These two letters were called by the ancient Greeks ‘theta’ and ‘delta ‘ “Here it is interesting to note that your favorites of very ancient times used these two letters in the formation of words having two quite opposite meanings.

 

“To be precise, they used the letter ‘theta’ in words expressing ideas relating to the idea of ‘good’ and the letter ‘delta’ in words relating to the idea of ‘evil’, as for example ‘theos,’ meaning ‘god,’ and ‘daimonion,’ meaning ‘demon.’

 

“The meaning of these two letters, as well as the ‘taste’ of their consonance, passed to all the beings of contemporary civilization, but for some reason or other they indicated these two different letters, having entirely opposite essences, by means of one and the same sign, namely, the sign ‘th. ‘

 

“The beings of a large contemporary community called ‘Russia,’ however hard they try, cannot pronounce these two letters at all, yet they are clearly aware of their difference; and whenever they have to use them in words expressing a definite idea, even though the sounds they make do not correspond to these letters in the least, they sense the difference between them correctly and never use one letter for the other.

 

“On the other hand, the beings of the contemporary community called ‘England’ still pronounce both these letters in almost the same way as the ancient Greeks; but they sense no difference in them, and for words of entirely opposite meanings, they employ, without the least embarrassment, one and the same conventional sign, in the form of their famous ‘th.’

 

“For instance, when beings of that contemporary England utter their favorite and frequently used expression ‘thank you,’ you can clearly hear the ancient letter ‘theta’; and when they pronounce the no less common word ‘there,’ you hear quite definitely and distinctly the ancient letter ‘delta’, but for both these letters, they make use, without any ‘remorse,’ of the same pan-paradoxical ‘th. ‘

 

“Well, I think that’s enough about terrestrial philology.”We had better continue to examine why it is customary among your contemporary favorites to have theaters everywhere, and what their contemporary actors do in these theaters, and how they manifest themselves there.

 

“Their custom of assembling in theaters, often in large groups, arose in my opinion because these theaters and all that goes on in them happen to correspond very well to the abnormally formed common presence of most of your favorites, who have entirely lost the need proper to three-brained beings to actualize their own initiative in everything, and who exist solely in accordance with accidental shocks from outside or the promptings of the consequences crystallized in them of one or another of the properties of the organ kundabuffer.

 

“Ever since those theaters of theirs came into existence, your favorites have assembled in them, not for the purpose of watching and studying the representations of their ‘contemporary actors,’ no they assemble merely to satisfy one of the consequences of the properties of the organ kundabuffer, very readily crystallized in the common presences of most of them, called ‘oornel,’ which they call ‘showing off.’

 

“Thanks to this consequence of the properties of the organ kundabuffer, most of the contemporary beings acquire in their presence a very strange need to evoke in others the expression of the being-impulse called ‘astonishment’ in regard to themselves, or even to catch a trace of it on the faces of those around them.

 

“The strangeness of this need of theirs lies in the fact that they get satisfaction from the manifestation of astonishment on the part of others in regard to their external appearance, which they arrange to conform exactly with the demands of what is called ‘fashion,’ that maleficent custom that has existed ever since the Tikliamishian civilization and is now one of those being-factors which automatically leave them neither the time nor the possibility to see or sense reality.

 

“This custom, so maleficent for them, consists in periodically changing the external form of what is called the ‘covering of their nullity.’

 

“Here, by the way, I would remark that it has gradually become the rule, in the general process of the ordinary existence of these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy, for these changes in the external form of this covering to be determined by the sort of beings of both sexes who have already become ‘worthy’ to be candidates for hasnamuss individuals.

 

“In this respect, contemporary theaters turned out to be admirably suited to your favorites, because it is very convenient and easy for them to show off, as they like to say, their ‘chic coiffures’ or the ‘specially tied knots of their cravats,’ or the daringly bared what are called ‘koopaitarian’ parts of their bodies, and so on and so forth, and at the same time stare at the ‘latest fashions’ brought out according to the edicts of those famous candidates for hasnamuss individuals.

 

“To get a clear picture of what the ‘contemporary artists’ do in these theaters during all this ‘showing off,’ you must first be told about an exceedingly strange ‘illness,’ known there under the name of ‘dramatizacring,’ the predisposition to which arises in the presence of certain of your favorites thanks simply to the carelessness of what are called their ‘midwives.’

 

“The criminal carelessness on the part of the midwife in most instances consists of this before doing her job, she calls on the way at the houses of her other clients and drinks rather more ‘wine’ than is good for her, so that while fulfilling her obligations she unconsciously mutters certain words fixed in the process of the ordinary existence of your favorites like the ‘incantations’ of what are called ‘magicians’, and the unfortunate new being, at the very moment of its appearance, as they say, ‘in God’s world,’ first imbibes the words of this ‘maleficent incantation,’ formulated as follows ‘Ekh, you, what a mess you’ve made!’

 

“And so, my boy, thanks to this criminal carelessness on the part of the midwife, the unfortunate new being acquires in his presence that predisposition to the strange ‘illness’ I mentioned.

 

“When one of these three-brained beings, who at his first breath has acquired this predisposition to ‘dramatizacring,’ reaches the age of a responsible being, if he should know how to write even a little and has the wish to do so, he suddenly gets this strange illness, and begins wiseacring on paper or, as is said there, ‘composing’ various ‘dramas. ‘

 

“The subjects of these works are usually some events or other which are supposed to have occurred in the past or might occur in the future, or simply events of ‘contemporary unreality.’

 

“In the common presence of the sick being, there also appear in the course of this peculiar malady seven very specific symptoms.

 

“The first is that, when this strange illness arises and begins to function in the presence of a being, particular vibrations are spread around him which act on those near him, as they say, exactly like the ‘smell of an old goat. ‘

 

“The second is that, as a result of the change in the inner functioning of such a being, the exterior form of his planetary body undergoes the following changes his nose is held aloft, his arms, as is said, ‘akimbo’, his speech is punctuated by a special little cough, and so on.

 

“The third, that such a being is always terrified of certain perfectly harmless formations, natural or artificial, as for instance, a ‘mouse,’ a ‘clenched fist,’ the ‘stage manager’s wife,’ a ‘pimple on his own nose,’ ‘his own wife’s left slipper,’ and any number of other things.

 

“The fourth symptom causes him to lose entirely all capacity for understanding the psyche of beings like himself “The fifth consists in this, that inwardly and in his outer manifestations he criticizes everybody and everything that does not come from himself.

 

“As for the sixth, the data necessary for the perception of anything objective are more atrophied in him than in all other terrestrial three-brained beings.

 

“And the seventh and last symptom is that there arise in him what are called ‘hemorrhoids,’ which are, by the way, the only thing he carries with modesty.

 

“Further, it usually happens that if the sick being has an uncle who is a member of one or another of their parliaments, or has struck up an acquaintance with the widow of a former ‘businessman’ or, if for some reason the period of his preparation for becoming a responsible being has been spent in an environment or in conditions where he has automatically acquired the property called ‘slipping in without soap,’ a ‘producer’—or, as he is sometimes called, an ‘angel’—takes his ‘play’ and orders ‘artists’ or ‘actors’ to ‘reproduce’ it exactly as it was wiseacred by this being who has fallen ill with the strange illness of ‘dramatizacring.’

 

“And these contemporary actors first reproduce this work among themselves, without spectators, and do this over and over again until it corresponds exactly to the indications of the sick being and the orders of the ‘director’, and finally, when all this proceeds without the participation of the consciousness and feelings of the actors, who are completely transformed into ‘living automatons,’ then with the help of those who have not yet become complete automatons—for which reason they acquire the name of ‘stage managers’— they go through the same procedure, but now in the presence of other ordinary beings assembled in these contemporary theaters of theirs.

 

“Thus from all I have just said, you can easily conclude that these theaters, apart from many definitely maleficent consequences, which I shall soon describe in detail, cannot of course contribute anything toward that lofty aim of the Babylonian learned beings when they created for the first time that form of conscious representation of perceptions and of the associative reactions to them of other beings like themselves.

 

“All the same, it must be admitted that these theaters and contemporary actors, of course accidentally, did provide for the process of their ordinary being-existence one ‘not-so-bad’ result.

 

“To understand what this ‘not-so-bad’ result consists of, I must first explain another particularity that has become proper to the common presence of beings who arise according to the principle of ‘itoklanotz. ‘

 

“According to this principle, the elaboration in the presence of these beings of the energy necessary for what is called their ‘waking state’ depends on the quality of the associations proceeding in them during their complete passivity or, as your favorites say, during ‘sleep’, and vice versa, the energy needed to make this sleep ‘productive’ is elaborated from the associative process going on in them during the ‘waking state,’ which in its turn is dependent on the quality or intensity of their activity.

 

“And this was the case for those terrestrial three-brained beings ever since Great Nature was compelled, as I have already told you, to replace the ‘fulasnitamnian’ principle which until then had been proper to their presence with the principle of ‘itoklanotz.’ Thereupon there was acquired and still remains in the process of their existence the particularity that if, as they say, they ‘sleep well,’ they will ‘be awake well’ and, vice versa, if their ‘waking state’ is bad they will also ‘sleep badly. ‘

 

“And so, my boy, since in recent times they have been existing very abnormally, the established automatic tempo that previously had more or less helped the appropriate associations to proceed in them has also undergone a change, so that now they sleep badly and when awake are even worse off than before.

 

“And the reason why these contemporary theaters with their actors have come to be useful for improving the quality of their sleep is to be found in the following circumstances.

 

“After the need to actualize being-partkdolgduty had entirely disappeared from the presence of most of them, and all the associations of unavoidably perceived shocks began to flow during their waking state only from various ‘already automatized series of former imprints’ made up of ‘impressions experienced long ago’ and endlessly repeated, there disappeared in them even the instinctive need to receive all sorts of new shocks—vital for three-brained beings—which issue either from their inner, separately spiritualized being-parts or from corresponding perceptions coming from without for conscious associations, namely, for those being-associations upon which depends the intensity of transformation of every kind of ‘being-energy’ in the presence of beings.

 

“In the last three centuries the very process of their existence has become such that in the presence of most of them there have almost ceased to arise during their daily existence any of those ‘being-confrontative associations’ which usually proceed in three-brained beings as a result of every kind of new perception, and from which alone data can crystallize in them for their own individuality.

 

“Well then, when your favorites, leading their daily lives in this manner, go to these present-day theaters and watch the senseless manipulations of the actors, and receive shocks one after another from reminiscences of previously perceived images, no less senseless and absurd, there willy-nilly appear in them during this waking state of theirs more or less tolerable being-associations, so that when they get home and go to bed they sleep much better than usual.

 

“But although these contemporary theaters with all that goes on in them happen to be an excellent means for helping your favorites to sleep better—of course only for today— the objectively evil consequences they entail for beings, particularly for the rising generation, are incalculable.

 

“The greatest harm done by these theaters is that they serve as an additional factor for the complete destruction in three-brained beings of all possibilities of ever feeling a need proper to them called the ‘need for real perceptions.

 

“And they have become such a maleficent factor chiefly because of the following:

 

“When they go to their theaters and, sitting quietly, watch the varied yet senseless manipulations and manifestations of contemporary actors, although they are in their usual waking state, all their associations, whether ‘mental’ or ’emotional,’ proceed in them exactly as they do during their complete passivity or sleep.

 

“That is to say, when they receive a large number of accidental shocks, which stimulate other shocks ensuing from perceptions previously fixed and automatized in a series of impressions, and when there is projected onto them the functioning of the ‘organs of digestion and sex,’ all this hinders the flow of those conscious being-associations which, pitiable as they are, have somehow become automatized to produce in them a more or less correct tempo for the transformation of the substances required for their passive existence, during which the substances required for their active existence must be transformed.

 

“In other words, during the time they spend in these theaters, they are not entirely in that passive state in which the transformation of substances required for their usual waking state has become more or less automatized And so these contemporary theaters of theirs have become merely an additional maleficent factor for the destruction of the ‘need for real perceptions.’

 

“Among many other aspects of the maleficence of their contemporary art, the radiations of the contemporary ‘representatives of art’ themselves are one of the most obviously ignored but most harmful for all the three-brained beings there, as regards the possibility of acquiring conscious ‘individual being.’

 

“Although these maleficent radiations have gradually become the lot, or the specific attribute, of the representatives of all branches of their art, my detailed ‘physico-chemical investigations’ definitely showed me that they are always most pernicious in those contemporary artists or actors who perform in these theaters of theirs.

 

“The noxious effect on all the rest of your favorites of the totality of the radiations given off by these actors has become distinctly noticeable in their present civilization, particularly during recent times.

 

“Although in previous epochs certain of the ordinary beings there also took up that profession, on the one hand, data for ‘hasnamussian properties’ did not always become completely crystallized in the presence of every one of them, and on the other hand, the other beings instinctively sensed the maleficent influence radiating from these professionals and hence were on their guard and took great care to behave toward them in a corresponding manner.

 

“Indeed, in former centuries these artists or actors were relegated by other beings everywhere to the lowest caste and were regarded with contempt And even at the present time in many communities, for instance on the continent of Asia, it is not acceptable to shake hands with them, as is almost always the custom when meeting beings like oneself.

 

“In these communities, it is still considered defiling to sit at the same table with these actors and to eat with them.

 

“But on the continent that is now the chief place of what is called their ‘cultured existence,’ contemporary beings not only inwardly consider these actors to be on the same level as themselves, but even copy their outer appearance, and at the present time imitate them in everything.

 

“A good example of what I have just said is the custom, now followed by your favorites, of shaving the beard and moustache.

 

“You should know that in past epochs these terrestrial professional actors always had to go about during the process of their ordinary existence with moustaches and beards shaved off.

 

“And they had to shave off these ‘expressers’ of their masculinity and activity, first of all because, constantly playing the roles of other beings, they often had to change their appearance, putting suitable ‘makeup’ on their faces and wearing wigs and false moustaches and beards, which they could not possibly have done with their own beards and moustaches, and second, because the ordinary beings of all the former communities there, considering such actors dirty and a harmful influence and fearing that they might not recognize them if they chanced to meet them in ordinary conditions of existence and might inadvertently touch them, promulgated everywhere a strict ordinance requiring professional actors always to shave off their moustaches and beards in order to be unmistakable for other beings.

 

“While explaining to you the origin of this custom among actors of shaving their moustaches and beards, I recalled a very sensible ‘measure of justice’ employed by the three-brained beings of the epoch of the Tikliamishian civilization also connected with the shaving of hair, but in this case with the hair growing on the heads of beings.

 

“A law was then established and strictly enforced which decreed that those petty criminals who, after trial by seven elderly beings of the given district, had been found guilty of some ‘immorality’ or ‘crime’ belonging to one of four previously established categories—the sort of criminals with whom all their ‘prisons’ are usually crammed today—had always to go about everywhere for a definite term with one of four sides of their heads shaven, and furthermore, any such convicted being was obliged to uncover his head whenever he met or spoke with others.

 

“It is interesting to note that there then existed another law, comparable to the one about shaving the head, in regard to the immoral behavior of women. “In regard to the women, a decree existed that was also very strictly enforced, subject in this instance to the jurisdiction of seven elderly local women who had earned respect by their previous conduct And the penalties for women applied to four manifestations that were then considered as the greatest laxity and immorality.

 

“For instance, if all the neighbors noticed that some woman had behaved negligently and without due regard to her family duties, and if the seven elderly women confirmed it, then, according to this law, for a definite term wherever she went she had to appear with painted lips.

 

“And if various women noticed that she had begun to manifest a weakening of her maternal instinct toward her children, she was condemned according to this law to go about everywhere, also for a definite term, with the left half other face made up and painted white and red.

 

“And if, following the same procedure, it was established that a woman anifested an inclination to avert the possibility of conceiving a new being for the prolongation of her species, she was condemned to appear before others with her face made up and also painted white and red, but this time only on the right halt.

 

“And as for a woman who attempted to violate her ‘chief wifely duty,’ that is, who deceived or even had the intention of deceiving her legal husband or who attempted to destroy a new being conceived in her, she was obliged by the same procedure, and also for a definite term, to go about everywhere made up and painted white and red, this time over the whole of her face. “

 

At this point in his tale, Beelzebub was interrupted by Ahoon with the following words:

 

“Your Right Reverence All your explanations concerning terrestrial art and those three-brained beings who are, so to say, its representatives, and particularly your elucidations about the contemporary ‘comedians’ or actors, have prompted me to make use of the impressions fixed in my common presence and perceived during my last stay on the surface of the planet Earth, in order to give our dear Hassein some good and practical advice. “

 

Having said this, Ahoon was about to look expectantly at the face of Beelzebub with his usual unblinking gaze, but noticing the familiar smile, always sorrowful yet kind and indulgent, he turned in some confusion toward Hassein and, without waiting for permission, spoke as follows:

 

“Who knows? Maybe, dear Hassein, you too will one day visit that planet Earth and have to exist among those peculiar three-brained beings who have taken your fancy. “

 

And then, still keeping to the style and intonation of Beelzebub himself, he went on:

 

“It is for this very reason that I now wish to initiate you into the results of certain impressions I involuntarily received of the various types of those contemporary representatives of art, as well as the peculiarities of their manifestations.

 

“You must know that the three-brained beings of contemporary civilization not only adorn this present-day art with a false halo and, particularly during the last few decades, treat its so-called ‘adepts’ as equals and imitate them in their exterior manifestations but also, always and everywhere, unduly encourage and exalt them And in these contemporary representatives of art themselves, who as regards their genuine essence are really almost nonentities, there appears of itself, without any being-consciousness on their part, a false assurance that they are not like all the rest but, as they call themselves, ‘beings of a higher order’, and the result is that in the common presence of these types the crystallization of the consequences of the properties of the organ kundabuffer proceeds more intensively than in the presence of all the other three-brained beings there.

 

“Furthermore, in regard to these unfortunate three-brained beings, the surrounding abnormal conditions of ordinary being-existence are already established in such a way that there are bound to be crystallized in their common presence and to become an inseparable part of their general psyche those consequences of the properties of the organ kundabuffer they now call ‘swaggering,’ ‘pride,’ ‘self-love,’ ‘vanity,’ ‘self-conceit,’ ‘self-infatuation,’ ‘envy,’ ‘hate,’ ‘touchiness,’ and so on and so forth.

 

“These enumerated consequences are particularly conspicuous and most rigidly crystallized in those representatives of art who are ‘manipulators’ in the contemporary theaters, and this is because these ‘manipulators,’ who are always interpreting the roles of certain of their fellow men with a being and significance far superior to their own, and who in themselves, as I have already said, are almost nonentities, gradually acquire, with their wholly automatized Reason, a false view of themselves.

 

“Thus, with their quite automatized ‘consciousness’ and completely nonsensical emotions, they feel themselves to be immeasurably superior to what they really are.

 

“I must confess, dear Hassein, that during our earlier visits to the surface of that planet of yours and also at the beginning of our last sojourn there, although I was in many places and had various relations with those three-brained beings who have taken your fancy, I scarcely ever felt in my common presence a genuine impulse of being-pity for the infinitely unhappy fate of these favorites of yours, caused by circumstances hardly depending on themselves at all.

 

“But toward the end of our sixth visit there, when certain of them were formed with the kind of inner presence now possessed by the representatives of almost all branches of that art of theirs, and when these newly arisen ‘types,’ taking part in the process of ordinary being-existence on an equal basis with others, happened to come into the field of perception of my sight with their exaggeratedly abnormal ‘inner appreciation of themselves,’ they served as a shock for the arising in me of the impulse of pity, not only for them themselves but for all your unfortunate favorites.

 

“Now try to turn your attention, not to all three-brained beings in general, nor to the other representatives of their contemporary art, but only to those who have become and have acquired the title of ‘artists’ or ‘actors.’

 

“Although every one of them in his genuine essence is almost what is called a ‘nonentity,’ that is, something utterly empty but enveloped in a certain visibility, they have gradually acquired such an opinion of themselves, by dint of repeating always and everywhere their favorite exclamations such as, ‘What genius!’ ‘What talent” ‘What a gift” and any number of other expressions as empty as themselves, that it is as if, among similar beings around them, only they are of ‘divine origin’—only they are !almost gods. ‘

 

“Now listen and try to transubstantiate in the corresponding parts of your common presence, for use at the proper time, my really very practical advice.

 

“This practical advice is that if for some reason you should have to exist, particularly in the near future, among the three-brained beings of that planet Earth which has taken your fancy—and I say in the ‘near’ future, because the presence of these favorites of yours as well as all the external conditions of their ordinary being-existence frequently degenerate—and if you should engage, as is proper to every conscious three-brained being, in some enterprise or other having as its aim the welfare of beings around you, and whose fulfillment depends partly on them themselves, then in whatever community of contemporary civilization you may be and whatever ‘circles’ you may frequent in the interests of your work, if you should ever meet any of these terrestrial ‘types,’ be very, very careful and take all necessary measures to keep on good terms with them.

 

“To see why you must be so careful with these recently arisen types, and in order that you may understand them better from every aspect, I must not fail to mention two other facts that have become quite clear.

 

“The first is that, owing as always to the conditions of ordinary being-existence abnormally established there, and also to the ‘fictitiously inflated,’ maleficent idea of their famous art, these ‘representatives of art,’ in the preconceived picturings and notions of the other three-brained beings, gradually become crowned with an imaginary halo, and thereby automatically acquire such authority that any opinion they express is considered beyond dispute.

 

“And the second fact is that during their formation these recently arisen types acquire an inner presence that permits them, quite unconsciously on their part, just as easily to become somebody’s slave as through accidental outer conditions to become his worst enemy.

 

“That is why I advise you to be very much on guard not to make enemies among them, so as not to stir up a lot of trouble for yourself in carrying out your affairs.

 

“Well then, our dear Hassein, the very ‘tzimmes’ of my advice to you is that if indeed you should have to exist among the beings of the planet Earth and have dealings with these representatives of contemporary art, never tell the truth to their face.

 

“May you be preserved from such a fate!

 

“Any truth makes these terrestrial types extremely indignant, and their animosity toward others almost always begins from this indignation You must only say to their face the sort of things that ‘tickle’ those consequences of the properties of the organ kundabuffer, infallibly crystallized in them, which I have already enumerated, namely, ‘envy,’ ‘pride,’ ‘self-love,’ ‘vanity,’ ‘lying,’ and so on.

 

“And, as I noticed during my stay there, the means of tickling which never fail to act on the psyche of these unfortunate favorites of yours are the following:

 

“Suppose that one of these representatives of art has a face like a crocodile, be sure to tell him that he is the living picture of a bird of paradise.

 

“If one of them is as stupid as a cork, say that he has the mind of Pythagoras.

 

“If he has behaved in a certain matter like a ‘super-idiot,’ tell him that even that cunning fellow Lucifer could not have handled it better.

 

“Suppose that from his appearance you see signs that he has several terrestrial diseases from which he is rotting day by day, then, with an expression of astonishment on your face, ask him:

 

” ‘Do, tell me please, what is your secret for always looking so fresh, like “peaches and cream,” ‘ and so on. Only remember one thing . . . never tell the truth.

 

“Although you have to behave like this toward all the beings of that planet, it is indispensable toward the representatives of all the branches of contemporary art.

 

Having finished speaking, Ahoon, smirking like a suburban matchmaker at the wedding of a client, or the proprietress of a Paris fashion house seated in an ‘ultra-chic café,’ began rearranging the curls of his tail.

 

Hassein looked at him with his usual smile full of sincere gratitude and said:

 

“Many thanks to you, dear Ahoon, both for your advice and for your clarification of certain details of the strange psyche of the three-brained beings on that thoroughly ill-treated planet of our Great Universe.

 

And then turning to Beelzebub he addressed him in the following words

 

“Please, kind Grandfather, tell me. Is it really possible that all the intentions and efforts of those Babylonian learned beings have come to nothing, and that of all those fragments of knowledge then known on the Earth, nothing whatever has reached the contemporary three-brained beings?’

 

To this question of his grandson, Beelzebub replied: “Indeed, my boy, to the great sorrow of everything existing in the Universe, scarcely anything has survived from the results of their labors, and hence nothing has been inherited by your contemporary favorites.

 

“The information they indicated in the manner I described passed from generation to generation for only a few of their centuries. Soon after the epoch of the ‘magnificence of Babylon,’ thanks again to their chief particularity, namely, the ‘periodic process of reciprocal destruction,’ not only did there almost entirely disappear the legomonism containing the keys to the lawful inexactitudes in the Law of Sevenfoldness that were introduced into each of the branches of the ‘being-afalkalnas and soldjinokhas’ but, as I have already told you, there was also gradually lost even the very idea of this universal law of the holy Heptaparaparshinokh, known in Babylon as the ‘Law of Sevenfoldness.’

 

“Every kind of conscious production of the beings of the Babylonian period was gradually destroyed, partly by decay in the course of time and partly during processes of reciprocal destruction, whenever this psychosis of theirs reached the stage called the ‘destruction of everything within the sphere of visual perception. ‘

 

“These were the two chief reasons why almost all the consciously actualized results of the learned beings of the Babylonian epoch disappeared from the surface of that ill-fated planet, and at such a rate that after three of their centuries there was almost nothing left of them.

 

“It must also be noted that the second reason I mentioned led to the gradual decline and the almost total disappearance of that new form established in the Babylonian era for the transmission of information and varous fragments of knowledge to later generations through the beings they called ‘initiates of art.’

 

“I know a good deal about the disappearance of that custom of certain beings becoming ‘initiates of art,’ because just before I left that planet forever I had to elucidate this very thoroughly for another aim of mine.

 

“For this purpose I specially prepared a very good ‘tikloonia’ chosen from among the beings of the female sex there, and made these clarifications through her.

 

” ‘Tikloonias’ were formerly known on that planet as ‘pythonesses,’ but the contemporary ones are called ‘mediums.’

 

“So then, I found out that in the most recent times only four of these beings, ‘initiates of art,’ still remain there, through whom the keys to the understanding of ancient art still continue to be transmitted by means of a ‘direct line of inheritance,’ and that this transmission now proceeds under very complex and arcane conditions.

 

“Of these four initiated beings still living today, one comes from among the beings called ‘Redskins’ dwelling on the continent of ‘America’, another, from among those inhabiting what are called the ‘Philippine Islands’, the third, from among the beings of the continent of Asia, in the region known as the ‘source of the Pianje River’, and the fourth and last, from among those who are called ‘Eskimos.’

 

“Now listen carefully to why I used the expression ‘almost’ when I said that three of their centuries after the Babylonian period every kind of consciousand automatic reproduction of the ‘being-afalkalnas and soldjinokhas’ had almost entirely ceased to exist.”The point is that two of the branches of knowledge connected with theconscious productions of the beings of the Babylonian period chanced upon favorable conditions and certain of their elements passed from generation to generation, partly consciously through the beings transmitting them, and partly automatically.

 

“One of these two branches recently ceased to exist, but the other has even reached certain beings of contemporary times almost unchanged.

 

“This branch that reached beings of contemporary times is called ‘sacred dances.

 

“Thanks exclusively to the survival of these sacred dances from Babylonian times, a very limited number of three-brained beings now have the possibility, by means of certain conscious labors, to decipher them and learn the information hidden there which is useful for their own being.

 

“And the of her branch I mentioned, which recently ceased to exist, was the branch of knowledge of the Babylonian learned beings devoted to the ‘combination of different tonalities of color,’ which contemporary beings call ‘painting.’

 

“The transmission of this branch of knowledge from generation to generation proceeded almost everywhere and, although gradually coming to an end with the flow of time, it continued until quite recently at a regular tempo, both consciously and automatically, among the beings of a community called ‘Persia.’

 

“And it was only just before I left your planet for the last time, when the influence of the so-called ‘painters’ of contemporary European culture began to make itself felt also in Persia and the Persian beings of the same profession began to wiseacre, that the transmission of this branch of knowledge entirely ceased.

 

“It must be remarked that in spite of all this, quite a number of the works of Babylonian times did reach the beings of contemporary civilization, chiefly the beings breeding on the continent of Europe But these beings, without suspecting the ‘well of wisdom’ concealed in these works—which were not ‘originals’ but only partially decayed copies made by their recent ancestors, who were not yet complete ‘plagiarists’—and without taking the appropriate practical measures to safeguard them, simply stuffed them into what are called ‘museums ‘ And there, little by little these works have been either totally destroyed or partially mutilated by frequent copyings with various corrosive and oxidizing compositions such as ‘alabaster,’ ‘fish glue,’ and so on, only in order that the copyists might swagger before their friends or fool their teachers, or achieve some other hasnamussian aim.

 

“It must in fairness be admitted that now and again certain beings of contemporary civilization have suspected that something was concealed in the works that chanced to reach them in their original form, specially created in Babylon by the members of the club of the Adherents of Legomonism, or even in the copies of these originals made in the course of their transmission from generation to generation by various conscientious professionals, to whom, as I have already said, it had not yet become proper to ‘plagiarize,’ and who therefore did not resort to altering the details of the works of others in order to pass them off as their own And it sometimes happened that certain of these inquiring beings of the European civilization, while searching very attentively, actually found in these works some fragment or other of this ‘something’ that had been intentionally hidden in them.

 

“For instance, at the beginning of the contemporary European civilization, a certain monk named Ignatius, who had formerly been an architect, attained the possibility of deciphering the knowledge and useful information hidden in the productions of almost all the branches of what was then called ‘ancient art,’ which had come down from the Babylonian epoch.

 

“This monk Ignatius was about to share his ‘discovery’ with other monks like himself, that is, with two of his so-called ‘brethren’—with whom he, as a specialist, had been sent by his abbot to direct the laying of the ‘foundations of a temple’ that later became famous—when for some trifling reason ensuing from the crystallized consequences of one of the properties of the organ kundabuffer called ‘envy,’ he was murdered while asleep, and his planetary body was thrown into the expanse of water surrounding the small island on which it was proposed to erect that temple.

 

“This monk Ignatius arose and was formed as a responsible being on the continent of Europe, but when he reached responsible age, in order to enrich himself with information concerning the profession he had made the aim of his existence, namely, that of ‘architecture,’ he left for the continent of Africa And there he entered the brotherhood which existed on that continent under the name of the ‘Truth Seekers’ And afterward, when this brotherhood migrated to the continent of Europe, where it grew in numbers and its members took the name of ‘Benedictines,’ he was already an ‘all-rights-possessing brother’ of this order.

 

“The temple I referred to exists there even until today and is called, it seems, the abbey of ‘Mont Saint-Michel. ‘

 

“On this continent of Europe several other inquiring beings also happened to notice lawful inexactitudes in the works of various branches of art that had reached them from ancient times, but no sooner did they find the key to the understanding of these inexactitudes than their existence came to an end.

 

“Still another being from the continent of Europe noticed these inexactitudes, and becoming more and more interested and laboring perseveringly, he was able fully to decipher works of almost all the branches of art.

 

“This wise terrestrial three-brained being was named Leonardo da Vinci.

 

“In concluding my present tale about contemporary terrestrial art, I might as well mention yet another of the many specific characteristics of those beings of contemporary civilization who devote themselves to this famous art.

 

“This specific characteristic of theirs is that whenever one of these beings notices some ‘lawful illogicality’ in the productions that have come down from ancient times and begins to work in his branch of art in quite a new manner, perhaps in order to make this lawful illogicality clear to himself in practice, most of the beings around him occupied professionally in the same branch at once become his followers and begin doing supposedly the same thing, but of course without either aim or sense.

 

“And it is owing to this ‘specific’ characteristic of the psyche of the representatives of contemporary art that, on the one hand, what are called ‘new movements in art’ are constantly springing up among your favorites, and on the other hand, those movements which were somehow rightly established by preceding generations, even though only after a fashion, are constantly dwindling.

 

“Although this phenomenon exists among the representatives of all branches of contemporary art, for some reason or other the beings occupied in the branch they call ‘painting’ are most susceptible to it.

 

“Hence it is that at the present time there exist among these professionals a great many ‘new movements in painting’ which have arisen in this way and have nothing in common. These new movements are known there by names such as ‘cubism,’ ‘futurism,’ ‘synthesism,’ ‘imagism,’ ‘impressionism,’ ‘colorism,’ ‘formalism,’ ‘surrealism,’ and many of her such names also ending in ‘ism. ‘

 

At this place in Beelzebub’s tale the hoofs of all the passengers of the trans-space ship Karnak suddenly radiated ‘something phosphorescent.’

 

This meant that the ship Karnak was nearing the place of her destination, that is, the planet Revozvradendr. And already a stir and bustle began among the passengers preparing to descend from the ship.

 

Beelzebub, Hassein, and Ahoon ended their conversation and also hurriedly began to get themselves ready.

 

The phosphorescent gleaming of the hoofs came about because from the engine room there were directed to that section of the ship, concentrated in the required proportions, the holy parts of the sacred Omnipresent Okidanokh.

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